So They Beat On, Boats Against the Current

Most people who aren’t members of Cult 45 can see that Donald Trump and the GOP are peddling an idealized past to enchant their supporters. But the same people seem blind to the fact that centrist Democrats are doing the same thing.

Granted, their fictional past is more limited in scope, but Joe Biden and Chris Coons are trafficking in the same sort of deceit. Chris Coons laments that the Cold Civil War is straining friendships he worked for a decade to build with Republican senators, refusing to accept that this is a bipartisan road to nowhere. Biden believes that Republicans will “return to normal” once Trump is out of office, as if they hadn’t stopped acting “normal” about the time of the 2000 election. These notions are no less absurd than the Republicans’ myths of an exceptional America, and Biden and Coons are no more receptive to criticism about their illusions than Republicans are.

Give the Republicans this much credit: Though they’re peddling false pictures of the past, they’re actually trying to build a future — a hideous fascist future, yes, but in the eyes of Republican voters, a better one. All Biden and Coons are offering is a false picture of a past in which they could enjoy their membership in a debating society without having to worry about voters noticing how little they were getting for their money. That future holds no promise for anyone except Biden, Coons and their little coterie of corporate Democrats upset that the gravy train isn’t running on time anymore.